Within many fields, substrates and wafers must be processed, stored and otherwise moved within a factory, assembly line, or system. Since the introduction of the 300 mm wafer semiconductor material, Front Opening Unified Pods, or “FOUPs,” have become the standard storage and transport method of substrates and similar materials. FOUPs have been used to isolate and hold silicon wafers for use in semiconductor production. Semiconductors, fundamental in the design of digital circuitry, microprocessors, and transistors, require these wafers to remain in as close to immaculate condition as storage units allow. Accordingly, FOUPs allow wafers to be transferred between other machines used in the processing and measurement of wafers.
Prior FOUPs generally serve to preserve wafers from the surrounding clean room environment. In conventional semiconductor projects, FOUPs allow wafers to enter the apparatus via a load port and front opening door. Often, robot handling mechanisms may place the wafers into the FOUP, where they may be clamped in place by fins and held for later use. Yet FOUPs today may be hampered by methods and system designs which may contaminate their contents, chafe wafers, and delay loading and unloading of substrate wafer contents as a result of multifarious construction. Thus, there may be a need for an invention that more efficiently and accurately accomplishes the desired tasks of FOUPs.
Additionally, FOUPs may be hampered by their design in that they cannot hold wafers at a reasonably high density. Manufacturing and processing require that wafers and substrates be provided in high numbers, through small areas and footprints to many locations or aspects in a system. With higher density carrier or containers, faster and more efficient production can be made. Additionally, FOUPs lack many features aiding in cleanliness, efficiency and contamination reduction, as well as other aspects, and do not provide for space saving or high density holding or carrying of wafers and substrates. As such FOUPs then may be inefficient and unable to provide for the needs of today's substrate and wafer manufacturing and processing.
With the above considerations, the Tec-Cell carriers and systems provide an improved ability for substrate and wafer processing, transportation, storage, handling, among other abilities. However, legacy and third party systems will still be used and available throughout the future. As such, compatibility of Tec-Cell carriers, containers, and features and all systems, apparatuses and methods, with legacy and third party products are desired to provide full feature of use for Tec-Cells in today's substrate and wafer facilities. Thus, there is a need for high density-able and cross-compatible features within Tec-Cell products to be used within low-density and legacy systems, apparatuses and methods.